A Democratic Socialist Blog

New Left

I have been an activist for 30 years. Yet my fights for social justice may hev been longer.
Paterson New Jersey is a mixed race multiethnic society outside New York City. It is different, even the houses.
Middle Easterners n South Paterson, Italians almost every where, blacks, and Hispanics from The islands and South America.
It was great, had all kinds of friends.
My first conscience fight with some white kids when where abusing my friend Fred. They where bigger than me. But I defended Fred fearlessly.
My school was very diverse and everyone played with each there with out problems.
Though some kids would cause trouble. Standard kiddy Nonsense.
I frequently saw posters placed by the Socialist Workers Party. Me and a friend Nick where to become Marxist Revolutionaries and we wore Russian winter Caps with Red Stars on them, we where asked by our teacher to remove the Stars. They where the sign of the enemy.
It was the 8th grade and I was reading Das Kapital (Capital.) I read the Communist Manifesto and liked the other better.
I am still Mildly Marxist. I went to New York to visit the Revolutionary Book Store on E 10th Street.
The owners where Marxist, yet I found them to be unfriendly and a little strange. Trust fund babies on a revolutionary fist waving campaign.
Looking at Communist Literature, Marxism seemed less appealing. Then I found books on Debs, but joined the DSOC Democratic Socialist of America.
I met Michael Harrington, whom to me was a political intellectual puffer. He once gave me a pop quiz on his book “Socialism” as an arrogant asshole. I met Ceasar Chavez at the Town Hall, NYC. I got into it with Harrington, he did not face the reality that the Democrats would never be socialists. I joined The Socialist Party USA. Debs, Thomas, and Marcantonio had the answers for me. The SP and ALP proved Harrington and the DSOC now DSA wrong.
One common occurrence I had was that lack of Solidarity that was part of the Left. You had to buy the cargo. Screw the cargo. The Left was out of touch with mainstream America.
The New left was damaged. Everyone broke off into competing interest groups, while Unions and people like Vito Marcantnio delivered solidarity, the New Left was scattered. It is either about gender, the hierarchy of Black, Hispanics, and Natives.
Other Ethnic groups did not count while, especially Italians. Anti Italians would say we should go to our rich contractor relatives and get good jobs. As if every Italian nows a contractor. feminist would tell me that they where into their careers and that ladies in the working class did not matter, someone had to do the work. Upper Class feminists did not care about lower class women.
In the SP also, there are those who went with “Men teach Women to do bad things.” her where a whole host of missandristic dialogue. Though there where a few rational feminists. By 1985 I quit Socialism, feeling there was no room for white males in the left.
For 10 years, even today I practiced Buddhism and even became Atheistic.
I was sick of the Alienation Left. Even Gloria Steinem got old, as Libertarian Attention hound Camille Paglia went after her. Gloria needed a Camille to give her the smack down.
Between 1985 and 1995 America had become a politically futile country. American needed a Socialist Party that was not happening. While other countries had Social Democratic, Socialist, and Labor Parties, there was an answer there.
In 1995 I rejoined the SP, hoping Socialism. Andy Hammer was National Secretary and had a rational approach to the party.
I disagreed with a lot, but than I ran for office and did my own thinking. By 2004 the SP became very hostile and sectarian, The Carnation symbol was replaced by a Red Star and Hands shaking Hands symbol. Social Democrats where being alienated out of the Party, by 2008, the party became more sectarian. A party with hope and possibility crashed again, and some of the best members left. I left in 2010 because I could not stand to see the party in the wrong hands. So, we relaunched the American Labor Party.
In this struggle, we are opposed to identity politics that elevates race, sexual preference, and gender above the class struggle. These politics completely dominate the fake left, are upper middle class in outlook and seek to divide the spoils of the Wall Street system among elites almost always tied to the Republican or Democratic Party in the US.
Time to end competing interest groups and face the reality that even sometimes the Left is wrong. Mostly when it breaks into competing interest groups.